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1.08pm
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1 May 2011
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Desmond said
There is an argument to be made that John had another, lesser but still significant, creative peak shown on Double Fantasy . I think that his half of the album was his best work since Imagine . After taking a break to raise Sean he had an untapped energy that can be seen throughout all of the tracks on the album. It is creative because he implements a new style that seems to incorporate the sound of the late 70s/ early 80s.
Regarding ‘Double Fantasy ‘; I can’t stand ‘Woman ‘ or ‘Dear Yoko’, ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’ and ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ are ok, Cleanup Time’ annoys me as it sounds like it’s missing a verse. That leaves only two tracks I often want to hear; ‘I’m Losing You ‘ and ‘Watching The Wheels ‘.
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1.21pm
2 September 2016
Offline It seems like we have different tastes but I am going to try to defend Cleanup Time:
After hearing Yoko have an orgasm with Kiss, Kiss, Kiss it seems to me like John is making a joke at the expense of Yoko. He is cleaning up the trash that she just put on the album by playing a classic rock song with a fantastic intro. The song includes fantastic riffs by John and a great horn accompaniment that helps to produce a fuller sound. Granted, the lyrics are nothing to write home but I love how nonchalantly he sings them. John just seems so cool and collected throughout the whole song.
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1.35pm
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1 May 2011
Offline I like the song, it just sounds to me that another verse should be after
“However far we travel,
Wherever we may roam,
The centre of the circle,
Will always be our home”
It sounds like it’s been cut out.
I do like ‘Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him’ which is more a created John solo track.
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1.56pm
2 September 2016
Offline I understand what you are saying, it is a rather abrupt cut off. I love Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him, but I really wish that he sung it on the album instead of Yoko. Oh well!
"Is it strange I should change?, I don't know, why don't you ask her?." - Neil Young
"As I'm sitting here doing nothing but aging, still my guitar gently weeps." -George Harrison
"Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you, forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you." -Bob Dylan
2.00pm
26 January 2017
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Hard Times Are Over is also fantastic as the finale. Although sung by Yoko it has John’s touch all over it. A really beautiful song. I do agree with Desmond that John could do no wrong on Double Fantasy . Yoko has some good work too, like Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him and Yes I’m Your Angel. Beautiful Boys is terrible and aside from the transition out of I’m Losing You , I’m Moving On is a very weak track.
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2.45pm
26 January 2017
Offline I’ve come to rethink how I view each Beatle’s creative peak since I last discussed it. For John, I still believe his best output was Rubber Soul . Each song is perfectly crafted with a masterful understanding of melody and structure. Norwegian Wood , Girl, Nowhere Man all have a combination of Lyrics and Melody that come across as effortless and natural. I often describe Dylan’s songwriting as songs that sound 300 years old, as if nobody ever wrote them they just came out of the ground and exploded into people’s souls. John had attempted to imitate Dylan on Help !quite successfully, however on Rubber Soul he elevates it and changes the conventions ever so slightly in to add his own sensibilities. His lyrics are extremely personal while remaining universally relatable. The subjects vary, however, he seems fixated on a feeling of self-doubt, as well as regret. I find it unbelievable the way he is able to tackle some serious and sometimes dark personal issues while maintaining his acute pop sensibility. On Help ! we see a similar attempt to weave his personal issues into Beatles music, however, it seems on Rubber Soul he took a few more risks, both sonically and lyrically. Take Girl for example. It blew my mind the first time I heard it. Incorporating the sniffle as a principle part of the song’s refrain is genius, no way around it. Conveying a sense of separation, sadness, loneliness, all by using one word and one sound (with the help of Beatles harmony). In my opinion, no other songwriter has ever been more on top of their craft than John was during Rubber Soul .
Obviously Rubber Soul is not an anomaly, as every member of the band produced great music throughout their entire career, however, I tend to see Rubber Soul as the culmination of John’s own songwriting academy, having reached the pinnacle of folk-rock, a genre which he helped to invent. The drugs helped encourage experimentation on Revolver and Pepper, and I would argue the songs and sounds of those records, particularly those coming from John are a logical next step. I can not deny the mastery of Tomorrow Never Knows and Strawberry Fields Forever , because hearing those songs, they sound like they are written and sung by an ancient master, however, once he develops these experimental psychedelic chops and returns to his acoustic guitar in India, he finds a perfect middle ground between the experimental mastery and the folk songwriting mastery. While some of his White Album output sounds less involved than his Pepper or Revolver contributions, I hear it as the ultimate showcase of songwriting mastery. Lyrically experimental and inventive, melodically and harmonically he can do no wrong, every progression and every melody is perfect. Listen to how smooth the chord progression of Sexy Sadie loops through itself while he sends melody lines soaring up higher and higher before turning it back around “Sexy Sadie how did you know?” The alliteration is genius, and lyrically I’ve found a million different ways to relate to the song without every actually relating to John’s experience which inspired the song. Take I’m So Tired or The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill .” John is in complete control of the pacing, articulating every consonant until the entire song comes to a screeching halt around a killer punch line. (ex: “captain marvel zapped him right between the eye-za!”,”curse sir walter raleigh he was such a stupid get” The musical flow of John’s songs on the White Album is so f*****g perfect and I will never get over it.
I guess my argument is that John reached the mountaintop during Rubber Soul , and somehow was able to break through into new realms of songwriting, which were fully realized on the White Album . Whether it be early days of Beatles or posthumous demos from his basement, John did not have a weak period of songwriting, however, these two instances are so overwhelmingly good, it is the reason I continue to go back to him and his music, and why I consider him to be the greatest songwriter of all time, despite my ever-growing appreciation for other songwriters, including his own bandmates. I will make another one of these posts for the other Beatles since I found it quite fun. If you’ve read to the end, thanks!
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15 February 2015
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More passionate rants on superlative songwriting please @sir walter raleigh 
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3.18pm
5 December 2019
Offline I very much enjoyed reading that wonderful piece celebrating the peaks of Lennon’s songwriting and creative skill, @sir walter raleigh and I wholeheartedly agree!! 
I think that’s why Rubber Soul is my favorite– it’s not the “best” Beatles album, but it showcases the boys’ breakthrough into a whole new realm of songwriting and progress, the gateway into the masterful records that come after it. Lennon’s writing in particular, as you have noted, becoming more intimate and powerful and just feckin’ fantastic. He explores new dark and personal messages that carry out beautifully in his lyricism and melodies. Even ‘Run For Your Life ‘ carries such a theme– I personally feel that the controversy surrounding it comes from people who just want to point fingers and who took the message perhaps a bit too seriously. Paul’s bass playing also really shines through on Rubber Soul , and we really see a start in his applying his knack for melodies and movement to the bass. ‘Nowhere Man ”s bassline is a great example of such– Paul takes a dreary song that Lennon wrote and drives it with a countermelodic upbeat bassline that bounces along until the very end. Overall, his bass on Rubber Soul is just so much more alive and present throughout than on their previous records and I absolutely love it 
But anyhoo……
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6.37pm
14 June 2016
Offline sir walter raleigh said
I guess my argument is that John reached the mountaintop during Rubber Soul , and somehow was able to break through into new realms of songwriting, which were fully realized on the White Album . Whether it be early days of Beatles or posthumous demos from his basement, John did not have a weak period of songwriting, however, these two instances are so overwhelmingly good, it is the reason I continue to go back to him and his music, and why I consider him to be the greatest songwriter of all time, despite my ever-growing appreciation for other songwriters, including his own bandmates. I will make another one of these posts for the other Beatles since I found it quite fun. If you’ve read to the end, thanks!
Enjoyed reading this and I agree with your well thought out assessment @sir walter raleigh. John was actually lucky to be suffering in his life during those songwriting periods because he always had inspiration to tap into. Once he had that inspiration he could write quickly. His real joy was being possessed ‘like a medium’, as he said.
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3.51pm
28 April 2020
Offline John – I think John was at his most creative and original, from a songwriting point of view, from ‘Rubber Soul ‘ through to ‘I Am The Walrus ‘. I do think that he needed Paul to help realise his ideas though. He was still great and wrote songs at a really high standard, after this, from the ‘White Album ‘ to ‘Imagine ‘. with a little dip in 1969. He lost his way a bit when he moved to New York. The standard of his vocals were great the whole way through and never really dipped.
Paul – I think his songwriting peak was from ‘Revolver ‘ through to ‘Abbey Road ‘. His solo career was patchy at best, some peaks, but a lot of troughs too. I think his songs relied on melody more than John’s, so if the melodies were weaker, the songs weren’t as good? His vocals were brilliant and at their best, from 1968 through to at least ‘Ram ‘. ‘Ram ‘ was amazing vocally!
George – His songwriting peak was from the ‘White Album ‘ through to ‘All Things Must Pass ‘. His guitar playing probably peaked late 60s to early 70s.
Ringo – He didn’t really have a songwriting peak, but as a drummer, probably from Revolver through to Plastic Ono Band / All Things Must Pass .
4.09pm
5 December 2019
Offline During his solo career, I would argue that Paul hit creative peaks at McCartney and Ram (definitely), Band On The Run (the only time he really “peaked” when he was with Wings, though during that phase, of course, he had a few other great songs scattered throughout), in the early 80’s with McCartney II and Tug Of War , and then sort of leveled off until Flaming Pie and then, of course, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard .
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5.02pm
28 April 2020
Offline lovelyritametermaid said
During his solo career, I would argue that Paul hit creative peaks at McCartney and Ram (definitely), Band On The Run (the only time he really “peaked” when he was with Wings, though during that phase, of course, he had a few other great songs scattered throughout), in the early 80’s with McCartney II and Tug Of War , and then sort of leveled off until Flaming Pie and then, of course, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard .
I agree with you regarding Paul’s solo career. ‘Maybe I’m Amazed ‘ was one of his best ever songs and one of the best ever solo songs by any of The Beatles. However, it is by far the best song on ‘McCartney, I think, though I do like some of the others like ‘Junk’ and ‘Every Night ‘. There are some weak songs on ‘McCartney’ as well though. I think ‘Ram ‘ is his strongest album of songs and obviously ‘Band On The Run ‘ being his best known. However, I don’t think it is as strong as ‘Ram ‘ and I think that there are a few weak songs on ‘BOTR’ as well. Most of his albums have some good songs, but also some forgettable ones too. I haven’t heard ‘Chaos And Creation In The Backyard ‘ yet … I sort of lost touch with Paul’s solo albums after ‘Flower’s In The Dirt’ even though I saw him in concert in Liverpool, when he toured that album … the only Beatle I have ever seen in concert.
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17 December 2012
Offline alittlebitolder said
George – His songwriting peak was from the ‘White Album ‘ through to ‘All Things Must Pass ‘. His guitar playing probably peaked late 60s to early 70s.
It should be noted that several songs on All Things Must Pass dated back to 1966-67, so predate the WA.
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7.59pm
14 June 2016
Offline John in his solo career – Plastic Ono and Imagine .
However his Double Fantasy /Milk And Honey era is pretty impressive for the tone he went for.
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11.23am
26 January 2017
Offline I posted in a thread recently about how Paul really comes into his own on A Hard Days Night. I just can’t get over the contrast between the music and the lyrics in And I Love Her and I’ll Follow The Sun . Writing a dark minor tune about how a relationship is going to last forever, and then on the next album writing an upbeat major tune about leaving a relationship due to uncertainty. He is absolutely brilliant in 64, but going forward he was able to build on these lyrical themes in an extremely profound way.
Yesterday , I’m Looking Through You , and For No One are all deeply introspective songs about a failing relationship. In Yesterday , the situation is standard for a heartbreak song: she has left, and now I am sad. Granted, it is probably the best version of this type of song ever written, but I find the feelings explored in I’m Looking Through You and For No One much more compelling. Particularly I’m Looking Through You , which is his best lyric in my opinion. Dealing with those feelings is difficult in and of itself, channeling them into a profoundly honest and biting song is entirely different. The older I get, the more in awe I am of that song, especially now that I am older than Paul was when he wrote it.
So, I believe that 65 and 66 are Paul’s best years as a lyricist. But his instrumental performances during that period are equally impressive. The electric guitar breaks on Ticket To Ride and Drive My Car are awesome, some of the best in the Beatles catalog. The bass on Rain , particularly when heard at the orignal speed, is brilliant, as his his playing throughout all of Revolver . Not to mention the singles from Rubber Soul and Revolver feature two undeniable hits in We Can Work It Out and Paperback Writer , never abandoning his unbelievably hitmaking ability despite exploring more personal and introspective themes on the album tracks.
Now Paul’s expanding role as a bandleader coincided with heavy drug use and musical experimentation from the rest of the band. Paul is often credited, particularly on The White Album with balancing out the extremely inaccessible experimental tracks from John, however just because Paul wasn’t on acid all the time doesn’t mean he didn’t take risks and break sonic boundaries as well. Helter Skelter is arguably the greatest success of all among the many groundbreaking tracks of the White Album , and Paul was also responsible for arguably the least successful experiment on the album in Wild Honey Pie . He was willing to take wild swings, possibly fueled by a desire to meet, or compete with John on the outer reaches of rock music. You can count the number of musicians that were as far out as John on one hand, and Paul is not one of them, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have the ability to push the boundaries, and to my ears it was almost always in an extremely tasteful way that John and George sometimes fell short of.
Finally, I just want to credit Paul’s vision behind the concepts of Sgt Pepper and side 2 of Abbey Road . What makes these albums so special is the full display of the bands prowess as singer songwriters within the context of a seemingly limitless bag of tricks in the studio. Paul’s contribution to these masterpieces goes beyond the music, and because of that, it is hard to put my finger on his creative peak.
His greatest achievements as a songwriter came in 65 and 66 in my opinion (although I haven’t even mentioned Let It Be which has several enduring classics that he seemingly rattled off like it was nothing). He was leaps and bounds ahead of Rubber Soul in terms of pure creativity during the White Album , just based on the sheer size and diversity of his output during that time. Yet its hard to Deny the medley as the crowning achievement of the Beatles, and not only does Paul contribute YNGMYM, SCITTBW, and the incredible finale of GS, CtW and The End , he is also primarily responsible for assembling the long one, and spinning unused material into pure gold.
Ill finish with this. Paul’s career is obviously unbelievable, likely the best that ever was and ever will be in music. He has released classic albums that have been praised by critics old and new, and has B sides from forgotten albums that would be an ordinary artists best song by a mile. And still, his greatest work as a songwriter was done in the 60s, with The Beatles. Here There And Everywhere might be the greatest love song ever written, and its a footnote in this post about his creative peak. Thats how good he is.
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12.15pm
17 March 2019
Offline I must say, I feel this topic is a bit easy to mishandle: Having a “Peak” would imply that after that, the rest of the output is sub par or else not a worthy follow-up. We as Beatles fans ought to know better in that, while we can critique and say that one point or another in their careers is subjectively better than another, objectively the band as a whole never had a low point in songwriting, musical ability, or overall success. There is no “Bad” Beatles album, and there is no truly “Bad” Beatles song. There is only what does not tickle one’s fancy in exchange for satisfying the delight of another. That is in fact one of the reasons we are so lucky. The band never had an “Off” period, and we arguably saw them go out on a higher note with Abbey Road than any band ever has since, or perhaps ever will. I think that, even as we sit here and compare what we do and don’t like, it’d be unwise for any of us to forget how privileged we were and are to be able to look back on their collective and separate bodies of work and see how strong they really are. In this way, The Beatles – neither as a group or as individual artists – ever “Peaked.” Rather, they ARE the peak. They are the gold standard to which every rock and roll band has tried in vain to surpass in a way that goes beyond contemporary relevance. If one song or two can be seen as one of their “Lesser” efforts, they would still be seen as anyone else’s Mona Lisa.
That said, there are certainly periods where we could say they were on a particularly high point vs a comparatively low point – not to say they were never reached again objectively speaking, but here are a few that come to mind when I think about this question:
For John, we could argue that his lowest point career wise had to be from Mind Games through Walls And Bridges . NOT for any lack of good music, heavens no. Only in terms of the pain he was feeling, and the way it manifested in his songwriting, do I label it as such. I don’t care what anyone says about John being “Happy” in this period. You can hear it all in the music as far as I’m concerned, and much like on Plastic Ono Band, this is a man dealing with a lot of pain and it shows. The only difference here is that he doesn’t seem to be reveling in any apparent sense of cathartic release as he was on the former entry, and from everything he’d go on to tell us later, that’s because he simply wasn’t. He was heartbroken and stayed that way until Yoko returned, no matter what brave face he tried to put on about it initially.
By contrast, we can comparatively call Double Fantasy an absolute high point. I dare say, this is John in his finest post-Beatles form. No bitterness, no lingering inner turmoil over his status an a former member of the biggest band on earth, just contentment and a family to share it with. Even on tracks like “I’m Losing You ” he’s clearly having fun with it and speaking in past tense. It’s not how he feels, it’s how he felt and it’s his last word on it. All he has in front of him now is his newfound sense of optimism and clarity. Not to mention, he’s bursting at the seams with an eagerness and a zeal for recording that we hadn’t seen from him since the Imagine sessions. To think of what the world was robbed of then he was taken from us can truly boggle the mind when you realize just how much he seemingly had in store already.
In Paul’s case…well, i’ll let this one breath. If people liked my thoughts here, I can always continue. 🙂
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